Animals have “soul” (Heb. nephesh ). Like Adam, they are living souls, self-animated breathers. Occasionally, Scripture speaks of animals as “spirits” or as having “spirit” ( ruach ; land animals in Genesis 7:22; “spirits of all flesh” in Numbers . . . . Continue Reading »
God’s end in creation is Himself, to glorify Himself. Does that make God selfish? No, Edwards says, and for two reasons (cf. Holmes, God of Grace and God of Glory: An Account of the Theology of Jonathan Edwards , 58-61). First is an overtly Trinitarian answer. Virtue is to love God, also for . . . . Continue Reading »
In a previous post on Edwards’s understanding of God’s purpose in creating, I should have made clearer that the views I was summarizing were those of Sang Hyun Lee ( The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards ) and not necessarily those of Jonathan Edwards. Lee’s views are . . . . Continue Reading »
Jonathan Edwards considered the wheels of Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot to be a type of the history of the world: “The whole universe is a machine which god hath made for his own use, to be his chariot for him to ride in; as is represented in Ezekiel’s vision. In this chariot . . . . Continue Reading »
Matthew Mason of Capitol Hill’s Church of the Resurrection argues for using biblical language in our talk about sex at the Trinity House site. . . . . Continue Reading »
Bavinck ( Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation ) pre-channels NT Wright: “All that is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, and commendable in the whole of creation, in heaven and on earth, is gathered up in the future city of God—renewed, re-created, boosted to . . . . Continue Reading »
Following some insights from John Paul II, I reflect on the crucial importance of the early chapters of Genesis for Christian analysis of culture at Firstthings.com . . . . . Continue Reading »
Blind people are not themselves cursed. Jesus made that clear. Yet blindness is a sign of the curse. It signals the possibility of objectification, the possibility (unknown in Eden) of gazing at a person who cannot return the gaze, the possibility of a unilateral gaze. In blindness is embedded the . . . . Continue Reading »
In Sexual Desire: A Philosophical Investigation , Roger Scruton pinpoints the ethical and metaphysical issue in same-sex sexuality: “The heterosexual ventures towards an individual whose gender confines him within another world. The homosexual unites with an individual who does not lie beyond . . . . Continue Reading »
“That man is a ‘body’ belongs more deeply to the structure of the personal subject than the fact that in his somatic constitution he is also male or female.” So says John Paul II in Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology Of The Body (157). How does he know? Because Adam . . . . Continue Reading »
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